City’s iconic bakeries see festive rush as Christmas treats fly off the shelves

Kolkata: As Christmas draws near, the festive rush is in full swing at Kolkata’s famed bakeries, with long queues of eager customers waiting to get their hands on traditional holiday treats.

Nahoum and Sons Confectioners, the city’s iconic 122-year-old Jewish bakery in New Market, has been particularly busy on Monday, with wait times stretching up to two hours.

Customers are determined to take home the bakery’s signature Christmas delicacies, including rich fruit cakes, almond cakes, and mince pies.

Pamela Chatterjee, who lives in Australia, visits Kolkata every year to spend Christmas with her parents, joined the queue at Nahoum, hoping to buy some holiday treats before heading to Delhi tomorrow. “We’re leaving tomorrow, so today is our only chance to get something from here,” she said, still waiting patiently with her father as the clock ticked past 2:30 pm.

Nearby, Saldanha Bakery on Nawab Abdur Rahman Street, another iconic bakery of the city, was also packed, with customers spilling onto the street. While the menu remains similar to previous years, price hikes have been noticeable due to the rising costs of wheat flour and cooking oil. A special fruit cake, for example, which was priced at Rs 450 last year, now costs Rs 500. Other items like walnut cake and choco-walnut cake have seen price increases of Rs 20 to 50.

Other long-standing bakeries in the city, such as the 150-year-old Imperial Baker’s and Confectioners, are also seeing a surge in customers.

Many are flocking for their traditional fruit cakes, alongside festive specialities like carrot-walnut cake, banana-walnut cake, and ‘nolen gur’ (palm jaggery) cake.

“We’ve also introduced a wheat cake this year for health-conscious customers, and it has already sold out,” said proprietor Sheikh Parvez Rahman.